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Story Created: Jul 13, 2009

Story Updated: Jul 14, 2009

I-Team: Sketch Artist

By Aaron Diamant

JUNEAU - A unique crime-fighting tool is bringing down bad guys left and right. It's Dodge County's weapon against crime, and the I-Team visited recently to "profile" this profiler.

Her name is Hanna Mueller, and she's a forensic artist with an uncanny ability to recreate criminals.

When three little girls in Dodge County were nearly kidnapped, it was to Hanna that they revealed the most descriptive details of the crime.

"He gets out of the car and tries grabbing me," one of the near-victims told us. "And I told my cousin to just ride up to my house as fast as she could. I was really scared," she recalled.

Terrified... but not too scared to describe her attacker to Hanna Mueller.

The sketch she made led deputies right to the bad guy. But Mueller shrugs off her success, preferring to give detectives the thanks for their works.

"They gave me great descriptions, I made the sketch," she demurred.

Detective Bob Neuman thinks a little differently. He believes that sketch helped lead deputies to the bad guy just in the nick of time.

"The drive that he had at this point in time was taking him down a path where something bad was going to happen," he said.

And he attributed part of Hanna's success to her rapport with victims. "She can get information from them to do these sketches, which is really important."

We saw example after example of the sketches she did, just based on people's descriptions.. compared to the mug shots obtained when the guys were collared. To our eyes, they look identical, time after time.

But Hanna herself is pretty nonchalant about her talent.

"It feels good that I'm able to help them that way, to use my skills."

Those skills are still developing. She's not an artist, nor did she enter police work intending to have this job. In fact, her full time job is at the jail, and the forensic work is a side job.

"It may help and it may not help, hopefully it will," she said succinctly.

But Dodge County sure seems to think it helps. County leaders sent her to the FBI for specialized training, and other law enforcement agencies often call Dodge County asking to "borrow" her skills.

The case frustrating cops now is that of Baby Theresa, a newborn baby dumped in the woods.

There are no suspects... few clues... and only Hanna's heartbreaking sketch keeping the case in the public light.

"This could be a domestic violence situation where the baby was miscarried after the mother was battered, we just don't know at this point but rest assured we will not stop until we do," deputies told us.

If you do have any information about Baby Theresa, please call Dodge County authorities.

 

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